I forgot! _(:3」∠)_
Well, I realized the anniversary was at the end of August but not quite the end of August and I didn’t realize that until, well, today actually. So… whoops! I was busy with ToX and before that SRIV and before that Salty Bet and during all of that, I was also working on a super-sneaky-top-secret project. But excuses, excuses. I’m about to talk about how much I love this stupid thing and I couldn’t even remember it’s birthday. Terrible.

I’ll go over the same spiel as usual. I’m really happy to have made it this far because a lot of times I thought I would call it quits. I mean, I know I rarely post but it’s because I rarely post that I felt this way. Still it’s been six years and we haven’t even broken 500 posts. Oh… well that might not be completely true. There were 500 posts but sometimes, looking back, things are so cringeworthy I just delete them without thinking. It’s older stuff (so now there’s no January 2008 posts) and I’m not proud of it but I know I should stop. Haha.

But you know what? This year I thought the site was gone. There was an error, and it seemed as if everything had been deleted. I had no proper backups to speak of at the time and I was shocked. At first I accepted it and thought it was alright since it wasn’t as if I updated on even a semi-regular basis and there would be nobody who would miss Loli Salad. But that wasn’t true. I would miss it. After it sunk in that something I had spent six years on was gone, I was incredibly saddened. Thinking I had truly lost something I worked hard to create, I think I probably even shed tears. Of course we’re here today so THANKFULLY things got fixed and I learned a very valuable lesson about backups. But I’m kind of happy I had an authentic “lose it to realize how much it means to you” experience that ended well.

I know I’ve probably said this before but having a place to talk about whatever I want is really nice. And even if I’m embarrassed by the past, I want to keep going. Even if it’s only a handful of posts a month. If they’re posts I’m proud of then that’s fine with me.

How deep does this corny, corny rabbit hole go? Much deeper. I also wanted to say that I myself have changed a lot since I first created this thing when I was, uh, fourteen. So yeah I guess obviously I’ve changed, haha. I mean when I created this aniblog… I didn’t actually watch… anime. I watched an episode here and there but I was young and had much better things to do. Well not really. I was just as much of as loser then as I am now. But I loved anime. I loved learning about it. I could tell you everything about a show but only ever watch one episode of it.

Eventually somewhere down the road things changed and I actually started watching it. Once I started watching series from the current season as they aired, I couldn’t stop. And I didn’t. A lot of things changed in life for me. People came and people left, I moved from place to place and graduated and started working and became an adult. Things didn’t and don’t stop changing. Just like anime, I guess. Which feels really dumb to say. But looking forward to each new season, lamenting shows past and being excited about those to come is a valuable way to pass time to me. Because of that I’ve met a lot of cool people and had a lot of neat experiences.

I can’t say that a day won’t come where I’ll finally grow out of this lifestyle and wonder why I spent so much time and money on something so frivolous. Sometimes, I think that now. I look around my disgusting room and think, “wow, this is gross”. But that doesn’t mean I want to tear everything off my walls and sell my figures. A gross person? That’s just who I am. A time when I’ll really want to change and when I grow out of the things I like? That time isn’t now. Because I know right now my life is full of uncertainties but I’m still certain this is what makes me happy. So here’s to another year, I guess!